Can someone please advise me on how to measure flush flow rates (i.e., urinals, water closets)? I know LEED wants us to do measurements for a 20% sample of fixtures with unknown flow rates. I'm working with an old 1954 building and existing fixtures do not have nameplates! Do I need to hire a plumber?
Also, is it possible to submit a customized excel sheet for my calculations instead of the LEED online worksheet?
Please help. Thanks.
Dan Ackerstein
PrincipalAckerstein Sustainability, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
819 thumbs up
October 18, 2010 - 6:45 pm
I would definitely recommend hiring a plumber for this one - I think an ambitious building engineering staff with some plumbing experience could probably handle it, but I prefer to use a plumber to ensure we don't create problems for ourselves later. As to the customized excel sheet - in some instances this has been allowed IF the sheet is in a form where the reviewer can review and double-check all formulas. In this instance I'd be wary to do so, as this calculation is such a complicated quagmire that I'm not sure any reviewer will feel comfortable approving an alternative tool (or will have the time to spend checking the math. . . ). Hope that helps.
Everardo Ocampo
LEED A.P., CxADigital Energy, Inc.
12 thumbs up
November 1, 2010 - 1:26 pm
Thanks for the reply Dan.
However, I'm still stuck on this requirement to do flush measurements for a 20% sample. I talked to various plumbers and all indicated that to conduct water volume measurements on toilets/urinals is somewhat unrealistic. Do LEED projects actually go through this extensive effort? I have an eight story building with older type fixtures. Only way I see this is doable is to remove the bottom portion of the flush valve (i.e., connected to the toilet) and collect the flushed water volume in a container. Seems like a lot of work if I have to do this for >30 toilets. Any comments on this would be much appreciated.
Abena Darden
Senior AssociateThornton Tomasetti
273 thumbs up
December 22, 2010 - 5:21 pm
Chiming in here a bit late but had a thought that might be helpful. If your plumbing fixtures are old (e.g. original to 1954, or anything pre-1990) they are most likely very water-consuming. I'd guess toilets over 3.5 gpf, urinals over 2.5 gpf. If that's the case, you'll have to replace them to meet the prerequisite, so you might just plan on that and then there's no need to test the old fixtures. You can put the money that would have been needed for testing towards the new equipment instead.
university hall
4 thumbs up
March 31, 2011 - 11:33 pm
I have this problem as well, and am wondering what to do about it. None of our campus plumbers are sure how to measure the flow rate. We've measured the flow rate ourselves, in house, using a simple flush count- but I'm not sure this is accurate enough. I do not think our toilets are so high flow as to warrant replacement- but I need to find some way to measure these!